There are many situations in which it is required to generate responses to user queries. For example, contact centres such as customer service centres, mail order purchase centres, ticket sales centres and the like. In addition, there is an increasing need for such responses to be provided without the need for an actual conversation between the customer and a customer service representative. For example, there is a increasing need for responses to be provided in written form, for example as email messages, text chat or short message service (SMS) text messages.
As the volume of such responses that are required increases there is a requirement to enable those responses to be generated in a quick and efficient manner whilst being of a high quality.
With respect to email responses, so called email response management systems (ERMSs) have previously been developed for use with contact centres where email queries are received from customers. These ERMSs have contained pre-configured information suitable for incorporating into email responses. That pre-configured information is presented to contact centre agents who decide which items of the information to include in a particular response.
A major problem with this approach is that a large amount of work is required to pre-configure the information and to add that to the ERMS. Also, it is often the case that the contact centre agent is required to copy and paste the information into the response which is time consuming, error-prone and inefficient. In addition, the format of the information needs to be either pre-configured or adjusted to fit the format required for the response.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for enabling web-based information to be used to generate responses to user query messages which overcomes or at least mitigates one or more of the problems mentioned above.
Further benefits and advantages of the invention will become apparent from a consideration of the following detailed description given with reference to the accompanying drawings, which specify and show preferred embodiments of the invention.